Sustainability Initiative Note: WMO is an observer to ESSI Earth - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A global Alliance for a new 10-year initiative Earth System Sustainability Initiative Note: WMO is an observer to ESSI

Earth System for Sustainability Initiative: goals • Deliver knowledge to respond to global change • Address the grand challenges • Engage a new generation of researchers

Earth System Sustainability Initiative: key design criteria . Global Users Social Users Researchers Global Global Economics sciences Research Projects Challenges Users Natural Humanities Grand Health ESSI Challenge #1 sciences sciences Grand Engineering Regional Regional Challenge #2 Regional Regional Service Research Research Regional Users Users Funders Global environmental providers Users change research • Focus on research for global sustainability • Partnership between researchers, funders, services, users • Strong regional nodes • A cutting-edge network • Active engagement with decision-makers • Active engagement of full range of disciplines • Active engagement of new researchers

Designing the initiative 18-month long-term 10-year Initiative transition framework Jun 2011 Dec 2012 2021 Transition Permanent governance Team • A Transition Team oversees the design phase on behalf of the Alliance, until a permanent body is appointed • An initiative bound in time, with a long-term impact

Transition Team: members Excellence across disciplines, sectors, regions for a truly new co-design effort 17 individual capacity members and 8 ex-officio (ICSU, ISSC, Belmont Forum, UNESCO, UNU, UNEP)

Transition Team: structure external education Working Group 2 expert Working Group 3 Institutional Communication/ design Education/ Stakeholders co-Chairs Working Group 1 A small subset to meet regularly and take decisions Three working groups to carry the Research strategy/ when needed on behalf of the larger team operational work forward Data organizational external design A few external experts data expert consultant Co-Chairs: Diana Liverman and Johan Rockström

Transition phase: key events and expected outcomes 3 rd TT meeting 4 th TT meeting 1 st TT meeting 2 nd TT meeting Apr 2012 Nov 2012 Jun 2011 Dec 2011 Planet Under Rio +20 Pressure Jun 2012 Mar 2012 Research Institutional design Implementation TT established; agenda / stakeholders plan; new ToR agreed first draft first draft governance Jun 2011 Dec 2011 ICSU GA 5 th Belmont UNEP GC Sep 2011 Forum Feb 2012 meeting Transition Team (TT) meetings Transition Team (TT) meetings ISSC ExCom Jan 2012 Launch events Launch events Nov 2011 Alliance partners gov. bodies

Looking ahead: three critical endeavours • A trans-disciplinary enterprise co-designed in an alliance • Reorganizing the entire global environmental change research structure, and the way of doing research • Integrating the “understanding” of how the Earth system works to finding solutions for a transition to global sustainability

For more information: www.icsu.org www.icsu.org/what-we-do/projects-activities/earth-system-sustainability-initiative/